bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

[Denys Nykula]

Guix on a Debian laptop host works okay, GuixSD in VirtualBox a couple
of weeks ago seemed fine too, but I've just spent a weekend trying to
install it on a dedicated laptop for real use, and I'm running into
many problems.

I should split this and file multiple more detailed issues later over
the next couple of weeks, but in case I don't have a chance to get back
to it soon I thought posting it here as is would be better than never
posting it anywhere.

Installation with a desktop environment (EXWM) started to "die
unexpectedly" every time when loading subtitutes, please see installer-
dump-790b17b6.

(Nice thing) Didn't find a netcat tool in the installer image to copy
the dump to my tethering phone, but bash's feature enabling me to cat
to >/dev/tcp/192.168.x.x/PORT did what I want. So if the upload failed,
I can post the tarball manually if needed.

Nothing hints that to enter the encryption key when it asks it the
second time during the boot, the user has to switch their keyboard
layout. Guessed it accidentally by playing with the Guile REPL that
appears after three decryption attempts.

Console fonts lose Cyrillic support after the first pull and upgrade.
Question marks appear in place of my letters instead.

(Probably impossible to fix by design, but worth mentioning) Pulling
and downloading substitutes wastes hours of time and traffic, without
estimates and with the warning split into many small messages without a
total sum. Also seems like it happens from scratch after the boot,
despite the installer having already pulled so much from the Internet.

That's with the standard installer image 1.4.0 x86_64. Retried using
the latest image. It partially fixes one of the problems (desktop now
installs), and introduces more.

Nothing hints that the combination for layout switching is now
Shift+Alt, not Alt+Shift.

Video (Intel HD Graphics 400) freezes after gdm shows the mouse, so I
can't use the environment or switch to a console to get a debug log.

bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

Hi Denys!  Sorry to hear, but thank you for writing which bugs still
cause trouble with Guix System.

I can say this:

Denys Nykula <vegan@libre.net.ua> writes:
> Installation with a desktop environment (EXWM) started to "die
> unexpectedly" every time when loading subtitutes, please see installer-
> dump-790b17b6.

Not being a maintainer, I have not looked at the dump, but as you
reported, apparently this will be fixed by making a new Guix release,
because the latest Guix has fixes for dealing with substitute server
errors.


> (Nice thing) Didn't find a netcat tool in the installer image to copy

You can use “guix install netcat” in the installer, probably, at least
it will work after running “herd start cow-store /mnt” as described for
manual installation in the manual.  Not a bug in my opinion.


> Nothing hints that to enter the encryption key when it asks it the
> second time during the boot, the user has to switch their keyboard
> layout.

Yes … this is a bug, but how to fix it; does Debian do better?


> Console fonts lose Cyrillic support after the first pull and upgrade.
> Question marks appear in place of my letters instead.

This sounds like a bug/regression; in the source code
<https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/services/base.scm>,
it looks like it should work, because it uses GNU Unifont, but it does
not display Cyrillic for me either.  However, you could add kmscon to
your operating system config’s services field to make console fonts work
for all languages, for example like this

(services
 (cons* (service kmscon-service-type)
        …
        %desktop-services))


> (Probably impossible to fix by design, but worth mentioning) Pulling
> and downloading substitutes wastes hours of time and traffic, without
> estimates and with the warning split into many small messages without a
> total sum. Also seems like it happens from scratch after the boot,
> despite the installer having already pulled so much from the Internet.

Yes, I think double downloads cannot be fixed, because the installer is
tested to provide a first working version (except download errors …),
but it will always be outdated.

But why there are duplicate substitute messages in the console, I do not
know.  Is it a bug?


> …
> Nothing hints that the combination for layout switching is now
> Shift+Alt, not Alt+Shift.

Both have the same effect for me.  Shift+Alt and Alt+Shift both work for
me.  Strange.  What happens when you change the combination in your
operating system config’s keyboard layout settings and reconfigure?



> Video (Intel HD Graphics 400) freezes after gdm shows the mouse, so I
> can't use the environment or switch to a console to get a debug log.

Did it work in Debian?  Did you use nonfree drivers before?

Regards,
Florian

bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

"pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <pelzflorian@pelzflorian.de> writes:
>> Console fonts lose Cyrillic support after the first pull and upgrade.
>> Question marks appear in place of my letters instead.
> This sounds like a bug/regression; in the source code
> <https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/tree/gnu/services/base.scm>,
> it looks like it should work, because it uses GNU Unifont,

What was I thinking.  Console without kmscon cannot support a complete
font.  It’s just that the default changed from supporting Cyrillic to
supporting progress bars:

commit 01334a61c7541d8ae29c5252e2e5b3ed7a59c552
Author: Julien Lepiller <julien@lepiller.eu>
Date:   Fri Feb 3 12:56:02 2023 +0100

    gnu: Use unifont by default in TTYs.
    
    It has even better language support than LatGrkCyr-8x16 and can show
    fancy progress bars.
    
    * gnu/services/base.scm (%default-console-font): Use unifont.

See: <https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/guix.git/commit/?id=01334a61c7541d8ae29c5252e2e5b3ed7a59c552>

IMHO this new default is sensible.  This sub-issue is not a bug.  You
should use either kmscon or change the default.

Regards,
Florian

bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

[Denys Nykula]

Thanks for your comments.  What I can answer right away is that I've
found the issue 59975 and the related commit too, but I still look at
it as a bug, even if the earlier behavior was accidental (i.e. if the
font with Cyrillic support was chosen for its typographic characters).
If a user during the installation selects their language and, after
booting, sees question marks instead of all localized strings, that
affects them more than seeing only ASCII progress bars.

I think the installer should conditionally revert the progress bars (is
that possible?) and set LatGrkCyr-8x16 as the console font, if the
system locale is Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian, Serbian
or Russian.  That's what Debian-based distributions do; other
approaches are probably possible (choose the default font in the GNU
service at boot time?).  When I learn more of the system internals,
I'll try to make a patch.  Adding console-font-service-type to the Guix
config like the documentation suggests didn't work, it complained that
the service already existed, so I ran setfont manually to get a
minimally working system with which I can work on my documents and
debug the graphical display issue later.  Note to self: learn about
modify-services.

bug#64006: Installation frustration weekend

[pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)]

Denys Nykula <vegan@libre.net.ua> writes:
> but I still look at
> it as a bug,

Then it is a bug.  Please go ahead and open a separate bug when you have
time or preferably a patch when you have a fix.  However, the console
default font in gnu/services/base.scm is universal for all locales and
really should keep supporting progress bars instead of Greek and
Cyrillic and Arabic script.  Possibly however the modify-services form
you mention should be added to the services field by the installer for
Ukrainian etc. just like the keyboard-layout is added to the config
automatically.

Regards,
Florian